Crimson Lines
by acceptedmisconceptions
Summary: Red X has haunted them for years now. Haunted their steps, their home, their confidence. Now, they might have a chance to catch this ghost.


**Disclaimer: I don't own the Titans characters, JLA, or HIVE, but Emma Echo, Blackjack, Christiana of the Mountain, Nats Robbi, Voltaire, Curse, Hex, the NEST, and Jessica Gotham are mine.**

**Authors note: I don't like reading OC or OOC fan fiction, so the OCs I use will have very small roles that don't interfere with the plot too much and don't hog lines. I would love it if people would tell me if I get too OOC, because I haven't seen this show in two years! Red X is my hero though, and I think his smexiness needs to be preserved in fanfiction for all eternity.**

**YES! This IS about Red X. It may end up being Rae/Red X, even. THIS IS JUST A PROLOGUE!! And grammar will get better. I'm too tired to care right now, but lit really is my best subject.**

* * *

It was a tall room, dark and daring. Black and burgundy with sleek furniture and yawning windows. Above, beams of ancient polished wood braced the walls apart from each other, up and up and up into the darkness of the tower. That's what Raven did, lavender-eyed and tranquil as she gazed up into the obscurity.

Jinx babbled with Kid Flash, who babbled back enthusiastically. They were bouncing around the room, watching Jinx's memories play back to her from the depths of time.

"AYE! This chair! Oh my god, I totally forgot about this" the pink-haired young woman screamed, flying through the air to land in a heap on the crimson leather. Flash, not being one to pass up a chance at jumping on furniture, followed her lead.

"You'll break it, you fatty" Jinx warned with a malicious giggle. Her eyes danced as she eyed Flash's dubious smirk.

"But that would be naughty, and you know that I'm not a naughty boy" the Kid said, suddenly bringing his face close to the witch's startled, sparkling eyes.

"Get a room, you two" Cyborg called, digging is head into his palm. Great. Just perfect. Creepy old school with those two necking in every corner they managed to find themselves in. So, instead of watching Jinx like Robin had told him to, Cyborg contented himself with studying the dismantled security camera he'd broken off the wall when they broke into this place a few hours ago.

The duo ignored the robotic man's comment and continued their fight for space on the chair. "Seriously, Kid! This seat was like, the only place in the whole school where you could get some peace" Jinx said, pushing her boyfriend away with two pink-nailed hands on his chest. "And it was great, too…perfect place for a book and some popcorn" the woman sighed nostalgically. Leather, high-backed, reclining armchair…the seat with a view of all the exits and entrances in the room, no tipping capability, and no annoying squeaking to cover up a prankster's approach. No way was she letting anyone break it; it was coming home with her!

Before the witch could spot another favorite place, a familiar voice echoed into the room.

"Hey, Jinx, come here for a minute!" Robin called. His voice was weary, yet clearly high-spirited. Flash could tell, just from the teen's happy tone, that Robin's arm was currently wrapped around a certain alien's waist.

"Why?" Jinx whined, loudly enough for Robin and anyone else on the campus to hear.

Kid Flash poked her in the side in chastisement. She wasn't even a Titan yet, and she was already testing Bird-boy's patience.

The witch grabbed his finger. "Fine" she grimaced, using said digit to pull him out of the room behind her.

* * *

Robin looked at the portraits—looked, not scrunitzed. He'd have time for that later, after he confirmed that all these people were, in fact, who they were rumored to be. Girls in pressed and pleated skirts smiled severely down at him, daring him to make his assumptions. Young men posed with their chins held high, slightly aimed to the left or right. It was too much like a museum of normal high school graduates, some exhibit of the most perfect seniors in the class.

But they weren't. No these people were HIVE graduates who'd gone on to greater things. Things that the HIVE's brainwashing had been too weak to handle, things too dangerous for their headmaster to comprehend. The Alumni Ballroom was a museum of terrible potential, not academic achievement.

"What?" Jinx demanded, striding over to the boy-wonder with her boyfriend in tow.

"Are these people who I think they are?" Robin asked seriously, nodding at the black wall covered in highlighted portraits.

"They couldn't be anybody _else_" Jinx replied smartly. She cocked her hip and placed a fist on it.

"Not to sound rude or anything" Kid Flash interrupted, putting a hand on Jinx's shoulder and giving Robin a pained but still cheery smile.

Robin's mask didn't make his eye-roll unnoticeable. "Of course not" he said. His gaze drifted to Starfire, who was now hovering beside the chandelier, inspecting the beautiful sharpness of the crystal.

"Tell me about them" he said suddenly, forcefully pulling his gaze away from Star and back towards the portentous portraits.

An eyebrow rose. "All of them? You better have a lot of time on your hands, blunder-boy" Jink asked.

Robin said nothing, He just waited. Then, "That one" he said, his tone decisive.

At first, the witch made no move to reply. Then, she sighed and pulled Flash's arm around her shoulders, something she tended to do when she was grumpy.

"Jessica Anne Gotham" she recited, "graduated from HIVE at twelve and came here the same year. She was a genius when it came to strategy and psychology, but relied on her best pall 'Christiana of the Mountain' when it came to the physical stuff".

"What dorm was she?" Robin asked, studying the picture of the tame-looking blonde girl in the picture.

"I don't know! I just know the stuff my sisters told me! I only lived here during the summer, remember!" Jinx sputtered, crossing her arms over her chest. This was SUCH a drag.

Before his girlfriend could land herself back in jail, Flash pointed a finger. "That one!" he said. With a small smile, Jinx complied.

"Everybody called him Voltaire, but no one actually knew his name. He could clap, and suddenly everything would be so quiet that the silence hurt your ears. Mass torture that didn't end until he decided to clap again, but he only used it when he couldn't get everybody to shut up by just glaring at them with those weirdo red eyes"

BeastBoy appeared behind Flash's shoulder, apparently done with the kitchen. "What about him?" he asked, pointing to the only visible student who had broken the dress code.

The man in the picture had loosened his tie and had two fingers pinching the brim of a cowboy hat. His eyes were shadowed, but a mist of smoke seemed to rise from his nose.

"Haven't heard of him. Probably left the NEST before Curse and Hex graduated" Jinx replied blandly.

"Curse and Hex are your sisters?" Raven asked from where she stood, leaning against the doorway to the ballroom with her hood pulled up.

"No. They're my pet bunnies who ran off to college with their evil genius IQs and wound up in the HIVE post-graduate school" Jinx sneered, not even bothering to turn around and face the indigo eyes of her least-favorite Titan.

It was a disrespectful gesture that she almost immediately regretted. Suddenly, she was hovering in the air above the other Titans, eye to eye with the higher portraits of her two older sisters.

"Genius IQ, huh?" Raven asked, still leaning against the doorframe with her eyes shadowed, "Is that why they graduated from the HIVE and ended up on this wall and you stayed at HIVE for six years?"

Refusing to be frazzled, Jinx just leaned back in the air. "Hey, I didn't want to go to this creepy school. Staying on campus with the twins over the summer was as close as I'd ever want to get to the twisted freaks who learned and taught here"

The statement seemed to redeem her, and Jinx floated back down to the ground, encased in an aura of black energy.

"What's goin' on in here?" Cyborg yelled, holding his dismantled camera like a hamster in his hands. He cradled it securely as he bounded over to the group.

Before he reached his friends, though, he stopped and tilted his head. "Yo, BB, why's Emily in here?"

All heads turned to Cyborg sharply, but the man didn't notice because he was looking thoughtfully at one of the portraits on the bottom row.

"Uh, Emily?" Beast boy asked, scratching the back of his forest-green head.

"Creepy girl from the tech show, remember? The blue-haired girl with the massive dog and the gi-normous stereo in her trunk?" Cyborg pressed, "Dude, I know you were with me when I met her"

Jinx's jaw dropped as realization dawned in BB's eyes and he started bouncing up and down.

Amidst the green one's delighted cries, she managed one whisper: "Emma Echo".

Then, she seemed to snap out of her trance. "You met EMMA ECHO?" she screeched. Before Cyborg could confirm or deny, she continued her rant and smacked her palm against her forehead. "You met her? As in heard her voice? Do you even know how close you came to…I don't know…getting turned into a defenseless drone?".

Cyborg and BB just gaped at her, glancing at the other Titan's for help.

"Jinx. Calm. Down. What's so special about this girl?" Robin asked, always the voice of tranquility and quiet passion.

"She was the President of Dorm North. THE president. Of course no one realized she was a hypnotist till after they voted for her, but she still was the head of the whole dorm. My sisters WORSHIPPED her" Jinx said. Her eyes were wide in amazement. Apparently, Emma Echo had not been killed in the final exam as everyone had claimed.

"Well, there's someone we need to put on the Wanted List when we get back to the Tower" Raven chimed dryly.

"Yes. Friend Jinx, if these 'presidents' are such formidable enemies, shouldn't you tell us about all of them?" Starfire asked, hovering above the ground with her jade eyes full of concern.

Jinx blinked and shook her pink pigtails as she caught her breath. She pulled Flash's suddenly tense arm even closer to her body. "Yeah. I didn't think any of them were still around. I mean, after the West Dorm burned down, the competition became uncontainable. Hex died because of it and Curse, well…I don't know where Curse is".

Jinx didn't dwell on those thoughts, though. She broke away from Flash and walked to the far left corner of the wall. As she walked, she called over her shoulder, "The South Dorm's latest president always got the corner by the windows thanks to a bet someone made more than half a century ago".

The rest of the troupe followed her slowly, now paying more attention to the mundane portraits that tiled the wall.

Jinx stopped in front of a black-haired, cold looking young woman who wasn't smiling.

"Nats Robbie. Under that jacket there's a bandolier with every lethal poison ever produced by man stored in the pockets. Her family was killed by Poison Ivy back in Gotham's dark days. She vowed that she would be the industrial equivalent of nature's poisonous mistress. She's equally lethal, but not equally human. She thinks human lives are weeds growing on a wall. She's herbicide"

Before the Titans could ask any questions, the witch had pressed a button hidden behind the draperies, and the wall—portraits and all—started to sink into the polished wood floor. As the faces vanished beneath the ground, Jinx spoke. "The previous presidents of both the North and South Dorms don't have portraits because they were killed by their successors, which was a huge disgrace. West Dorm's two living former Presidents are both in a comatose state due to whatever poison exploded in the dorm six years ago and burned the whole place down"

Her voice was difficult to hear over the rumble of the pulley system that was lowering the wall, bur Robin had absorbed every word.

"And that leaves the East Dorm" he said.

"Uh huh" Jinx said, pressing the button once more. The descending wall came to a screeching halt, but none of the pictures even shuddered. "This guy is insane" she said, sticking a finger out so it came within an inch of the glossy canvas.

In front of her long pink nail, a lean, lithe man smirked at her. His lazy posture conflicted sharply with his glinting amber eyes and alert gaze. A mess of chestnut-colored hair fell charmingly over his face, and an untucked shirt-tail peeked out from under his black standard issue school jacket.

"BlackJack. The most dangerous man on campus. Freakishly intelligent, witty and clever, and handsome and everything else that society craves in its heroes. The problem is…he has no intention of being a hero. He cares about one thing (getting what he wants) and will do anything to get it (including crash an entire country's economy to acquire some oil fields for his financial partners). He's superhuman, too. Not exactly Superman, but he and his brother are both genetically engineered specimens of human perfection. I saw him leap ten feet in the air once, and that was just to catch a Frisbee"

With that, Jinx drifted off, lost in memories. This had seemed like such a fun trip down memory lane at first. The Titans had already taken care of the last guards on the old campus. All she had to do was answer a few questions about the NEST school, which they had automatically assumed was just another branch of the HIVE, and she could explore the old mansion for as long as she wanted.

Back when she was eight, spending the summer with her genius sisters had been fun. The real nature of the place hadn't sunk in. Looking back on the people she'd seen hanging around over the summer session, Jinx realized what kind of place this actually was.

"We have to go" she said softly after a moment, not realizing that conversation had carried on without her.

Robin gaze her a puzzled look. "Why?" he asked. Jinx felt the other six teens' stares piercing her skin.

"Because this place hasn't been shut down" Jinx said, raising her eyes slowly. Sure, it had fallen into decay over the past six years, but she highly doubted that it was _all _gone. Not with people like Emma Echo and Blackjack secretly pulling the strings behind the administration of the school.

"No. No, it hasn't" replied a voice from somewhere above the huddled group of teens.

Before the voice had died from the air, a neon green electric cloud materialized around Jinx and the Titans. It wasn't painful, but it was disorienting, and apparently it had a very nasty effect on Raven. The indigo witch crumpled to the floor.

**Hey, is the NEST too Hogwartzey? Red X gets a rather large part in the next chapter (if I write it, so send me some reviews!). **


End file.
